Is Free Will Mostly an Illusion? There's a Lot of Evidence Against It and None for It

[publicduende]

If that's so then my spiritual immune system must be faulty. As well as some filtering mechanism in my mind that others have that can filter our interruptions and noises.

If you have had your fair share of demons (inner or outer) as well as dark forces and murphy's law and nasty tricks of the universe too, then you should be able to relate to me right? Why then did you act like you could not relate or understand me before?

The demons I am talking about are a metaphor for an unfortunate series of events that started with a certain someone wanting to take the stupidest form of revenge against me, and ended with me having enough of the life I was having in London. I spent years devoured by rage, despair and frustration, and it hasn't been easy to regain a measure of objectivity.

Once that objectivity was regained, though, I couldn't help but admit to myself that I couldn't blame this "certain someone" for all the twists my life took, from that point on. I had to take full responsibility for what happened to me and the choices I made, whether they were justified at the moment or not, whether they were objectively good or bad, and make the most out of it.

Occam's razor fell on my abstruse theory of what happened and why. It was much simpler than that. For how complicated an existence can be, every life is always a string of choices and their consequences, which lead to other choices. Every step of the journey is a direct function of the previous, and will influence the next.

In other words, the turning point in my life, my "defeating the demons" if you want to put it that way, was when I woke up and realised that there have never been any demons flying low above my head, pulling strings. It's always been me, and forever will be. I was driving a car, someone tried to bump me out. They didn't succeed because the impact was too strong. They succeeded because I took my hands off the wheel and let the car move around without my control, for a good while.

Dark spiritual forces exist and they do conspire against humanity, perhaps through key individuals, families, or elite communities. Yet, at the microscopic level, at the personal level, we are and should be firmly in control of our own cars, no matter how hard events try to bump us out of track. It's not easy and you and I failed many times. Yet, that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying, or learn to be more successful at doing it.

So you've noticed too that the universe seems to be a trickster, like the trickster gods that ancient cultures talked about, like the Babylonians? It loves to set you up and then pull the rug from under you, as if it loved to f**k with your head. Or give you false hope to set you up for disappointment, even when nothing could have gone wrong. I think everyone experiences that to some degree. Most guys here do not like to admit it though.

Well, based on what I just said, no. It's all in our head.

[Daddy Wu]

Ok then how about I give you my credit card and you book a ticket out of here for me? lol

WINSTON!! MY SON!!

Real man do action!! Not act like dumbass!!!

Daddy think you don't want to be real man!

Daddy think you want to be pretty girl!! Then real man do everything for you!!!

Daddy make sense again! RIGHT?????

Love,
Your Daddy

[Moretorque]

Ok then how about I give you my credit card and you book a ticket out of here for me? lol

WINSTON!! MY SON!!

Real man do action!! Not act like dumbass!!!

Daddy think you don't want to be real man!

Daddy think you want to be pretty girl!! Then real man do everything for you!!!

Daddy make sense again! RIGHT?????

Love,
Your Daddy

Daddy Wu such words of wisdom or Winston in this case, now we know where your son got his ispirational abilities.

[Winston]

Devin Madgy talks about intrusive thoughts below. Do any of you have them? Don't they interfere with your mind and free will?



Btw, have any of you eaten Doritos chips? I've noticed that once you eat some, you can't stop. Something makes you keep eating more. I hate that. It's like the chips make you addicted. Doesn't that compromise your free will? So you see, even a simple example like that points to free will being compromised, right? lol

[Winston]

Why do New Agers always talk about free will as it were central? How can there be free will when many of us have mental disorders which compromise our free will, and also there is a perverse murphy's law force in this world that makes things go wrong (yes even if we are positive so no it does not come from negative thinking) and BLOCK our free will, which no one ever addresses or tries to explain?

Furthermore, we do not have power to control most things in life, not even our reality. Telekinesis does exist but only at the microscopic scale, like moving very small objects and spinning paper psi wheels. We cannot move objects or control matter like the Jedi do in Star Wars. So our thoughts aren't as powerful as New Agers claim. Research the field of parapsychology and you will see this. So why do New Agers act like our thoughts and minds are all powerful when that is baseless and not validated even by parapsychology? I don't understand.

Also why do New Agers have a hive mind about these things yet they consider themselves to be freethinkers and freespirits? Go figure. Nothing makes sense. Everyone seems to be a programmed character these days on auto-pilot, like an NPC (non-player character). I often feel like I'm in a simulation or dream where I'm the only real person or soul. Does anyone else feel that way too?

Example of what I mean:

[Winston]

Yet another reason and way that our free will is compromised.

Carl Jung & The Psychology of Self-Sabotage (feat. Emerald)

Why do we self-sabotage? How come that we wreck our own plans without any good reason? Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered plausible answers to these questions as he became aware of a part of the psyche that he called the Shadow. We can see the Shadow as a psychological container within the realm of the unconscious. In this dark place, where the light of our conscious awareness does not reach, we store our undesirable traits.

Luckily, there are ways to stop this self-sabotage. Instead of repressing what’s in the Shadow, Jung urged us to integrate it into our personality. And we can only do this by making the unconscious conscious and discovering what’s hiding underneath. This video explores Carl Jung & the psychology of self-sabotage, featuring Emerald from The Diamond Net.

[Winston]

I don't understand something. If free will is compromised by many things, including our own dark side and subconscious mind, then why is it a central doctrine in New Age and Christian teachings?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-qi3ZMf60A

"Dorothy that's not my experience. In my experience I am only allowed to go with the flow, and follow destiny, if I try to go against it, then everything goes wrong and murphy's law keeps happening until I am blocked and have to go the way destiny wants. So I don't see any evidence of this "free will" that you promote as central and sacred. How do you explain that? I can give you hundreds of examples. I love new age teaching but it doesn't fit common sense reality, and no, negative thinking had NOTHING to do with it. This is true even if I'm totally positive and optimistic.

Also Dorothy if you go against your destiny it feels like walking upstream in a river. Eventually you get tired and have to succumb to the flow and turn the other way. How is that free will? So you see, you can't choose something against your destiny. It's futile. That's my experience. Sorry if that doesn't fit new age teachings, but that's my real life experience.

Btw I'm not saying free will doesn't exist and fatalism reigns. I think free will does exist but it's a very small factor. Not all encompassing like new agers make it out to be. Most people do not have it because nearly everything they do and say is pre-programmed by subconscious routines and conditioning. You have to be higher consciousness to have some free will. The average person does not have that of course. So it's not true that everyone has total free will without hindrance."

[Winston]

Eric Dubay explains why free will is mostly an illusion.

When confronted and pressed on why God would create and allow evil to exist in the world, most people respond that it is because God gives us free will, and therefore evil exists because of Man, not God. People may choose to do evil things of their own accord, or through the influence of demi-gods like Satan, but the good God has nothing to do with it, because His only part to play was in providing us all with free will. But is that really the case? Can God be so easily let off the hook? Does man truly possess this prized and pedestalized concept called “Free Will,” or is that too mostly an illusion?

In the movie "Adjustment Bureau" the agents said that the system only gives you free will to decide the trivial stuff, not the important stuff.

What's the evidence for free will? Look around you. Most people are on auto pilot and look like zombies and seem to be following a script. They are a product of their genes and social programming. Free will probably exists but it's a small factor, not a big one like Christians and New Agers claim, and most people don't have it. Only those highly aware do. I've explained this to New Agers and Christians but they blank out. They are programmed.

[Pixel--Dude]

Eric Dubay explains why free will is mostly an illusion.

When confronted and pressed on why God would create and allow evil to exist in the world, most people respond that it is because God gives us free will, and therefore evil exists because of Man, not God. People may choose to do evil things of their own accord, or through the influence of demi-gods like Satan, but the good God has nothing to do with it, because His only part to play was in providing us all with free will. But is that really the case? Can God be so easily let off the hook? Does man truly possess this prized and pedestalized concept called “Free Will,” or is that too mostly an illusion?

In the movie "Adjustment Bureau" the agents said that the system only gives you free will to decide the trivial stuff, not the important stuff.

What's the evidence for free will? Look around you. Most people are on auto pilot and look like zombies and seem to be following a script. They are a product of their genes and social programming. Free will probably exists but it's a small factor, not a big one like Christians and New Agers claim, and most people don't have it. Only those highly aware do. I've explained this to New Agers and Christians but they blank out. They are programmed.

I don't think free will is an illusion. Especially how Eric Dubay talked about it, of course he has the choice to eat razor blades and drink bleach, nothing is preceeding him aside from common sense. If he eats a razor blade he will probably die, but that's his free will and his choice to make.

The way how you've described it is something I agree with to a degree. Only those who have higher levels of awareness have free will. For example, we are all wired with biological imperatives, take sexuality. I could meet a girl who is really sexy who puts it on a plate for me, but ultimately I have the free will to stay loyal to my partner or get on the hot mamacita in front of me.

You're right what you said about mindless NPCs navigating life like unthinking zombies. I work with a lot of people like this. They think that working for a shitty company is their purpose in life. They also don't want to be at home without work because they wouldn't want to be bored. Geez. As if being at home is pointless and boring. It's the other way around. Working for a corporation is soulless and pointless. At home I could spend time with family and friends or pursue creative projects and self development.

[publicduende]

There is also a statistical, large number theory aspect to free will.

As everybody knows, if you take 10 million people and you analyse a specific moment of their lives, e.g. when they have breakfast (if they do), you see many predictable patterns. If you take a single person and observe every moment of their life, from their birth to their death, you also see many predictable patterns.

These results may be easily bring water to the conclusion that humans behave in ways that are predictable and dictated by their nature, their instincts, or maybe some superior intelligence who got all of us an agenda to follow.

Indeed, with most if not all processes occurring in nature, that is simply the law of large numbers at play. Statistically, every human community, every society, every sample of individuals, if well chosen and sufficiently large, when observed on aggregate, converge to a number of predictable patterns and behaviours.

It may seem like we are all an army of little mice, all waking up, drinking our coffee, and going to an office at the same time. We all dream of the same vacations, the same hot girls whom we can never have. We all make roughly the same amounts of money, etc. This phenomenon is very well known to social scientists, marketing experts, politicians, basically everyone who may want to use it to their advantage: sell more and get richer, reach power and stay in power, etc.

Free will is not very visible from the 10,000 ft view. Free will is exercised at the individual level, on the myriads of macroscopic events that shape our lives. We hate our bosses and we wish we could get a baseball bat and smash their ugly head into a photocopier. Many may harbour those feelings, but how many of us choose to act upon them and break a basic social rule, which is to respect human life even when their existence is not of our fancy? We may have a hot mamacita on a silver tray and run the risk of ruining our relationship and family. We may choose to go for her, or leave her alone.

Free will is what happens to us while other people are busy looking at us from a 10,000 ft altitude. It's the magna summa of the many, many micro-decisions and micro-actions that we take as we navigate our lives. Of course some of these decisions and actions may be more predictable than others, as they may be dictated by our innate instincts, our personality, our prior experiences and the outcomes of those experiences, the chemistry of the moment, etc.

Yet, there will always be a modicum of agency in all of them. That is free will.

[Pixel--Dude]

@Winston
@publicduende

I do believe we have some agency in our decisions during day to day life. But I think our free will is largely imposed upon by government and corporations. If you're religious your free will is affected by doctrines of your religion and feelings of guilt associated with certain actions.

So free will does exist as a fundamental premise. It's just that modern society and ideological doctrines largely trample on any semblance of it. If I want to stay at home and do some creative writing but I'm due to work then my free will is secondary to the obligation I have to work to earn money for survival.

So exist though it may, free will becomes pointless in such a horrible world. Unless you're an unthinking zombie with no desires other than to serve God or serve your corporate masters then your life becomes similar to a living hell where you become a prisoner in your own life. It absolutely sucks.

[publicduende]

@Pixel--Dude

I think you're confusing civil rights and personal freedoms with free will. Free will if intimately related to our ability to comprehend the world and reason not just with our minds, but with our hearts and emotions.

Authoritarian governments and systems of social rule may severely limit our freedom of expression, our rights to exercise our free will, perhaps to a point where the only way to survive is to bow, obey and comply.

Yet, even in those awful scenarios, free will will always be there. It's our innate gift, from God, or Prometheus if you believe in the Gnosis.

[Pixel--Dude]

@Pixel--Dude

I think you're confusing civil rights and personal freedoms with free will. Free will if intimately related to our ability to comprehend the world and reason not just with our minds, but with our hearts and emotions.

Authoritarian governments and systems of social rule may severely limit our freedom of expression, our rights to exercise our free will, perhaps to a point where the only way to survive is to bow, obey and comply.

Yet, even in those awful scenarios, free will will always be there. It's our innate gift, from God, or Prometheus if you believe in the Gnosis.

No I wasn't confusing free will with civil rights. I meant that even though we have free will we are restricted in how much we can exercise it due to obligations imposed upon us from things like government and corporate restrictions or even religious indoctrination.

Let's say that I wanted to spend the day in bed because I want to do some writing or even because I want to be left the hell alone and not talk to anyone, that would be my free will to have a day of solitude and creativity. But a corporation decides I have to work that day, its part of my rota. I have to get up, even though I don't want to and go to work. There is no free will in that. I don't want to go, I'm being forced to go against my will, but I'm obligated to go because I need money for food.

[publicduende]

No I wasn't confusing free will with civil rights. I meant that even though we have free will we are restricted in how much we can exercise it due to obligations imposed upon us from things like government and corporate restrictions or even religious indoctrination.

Let's say that I wanted to spend the day in bed because I want to do some writing or even because I want to be left the hell alone and not talk to anyone, that would be my free will to have a day of solitude and creativity. But a corporation decides I have to work that day, its part of my rota. I have to get up, even though I don't want to and go to work. There is no free will in that. I don't want to go, I'm being forced to go against my will, but I'm obligated to go because I need money for food.

I got you. I was just pointing out that the definition of free will is more with our innate ability to choose for ourselves, choose between good and evil, left or right, at every juncture of our lives, than the actual times we seem to make those choices.

You are bound, like everybody else, to a work routine because you know you need the wages to live and, deep down, you know it's a good thing to be a functional member of a society, no matter how dysfunctional.

Our free will is always exercised, even against our dreams and desires, even when it's limited, braced up by society's many rules and conventions.